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Argument over Going Out

Hello all,

I'm writing here to seek advice on how to negotiate an argument I'm having with my other half. First thing I need to do is give you some back story:

When we first got together, we were both in a really good place, emotionally. We'd both been depressed for the preceding year, had only just discovered the drug Ecstasy and had started taking it. We both had a new lease of life and were riding the wave.

It turned out that, in addition to this, we had a lot in common, and we settled down to a relationship. He was 27 at the time, I was 20.

I think because of my youth, I was terribly keen to be the perfect girlfriend. You know the stuff, be attentive, go to all the stuff he wants to go to, listen well, don't be bossy, all that shebang. I realise now that it's better to be assertive sometimes, but I didn't realise at the time and am now paying for the mistake.

Mike has always liked clubbing, especially techno, and over the years we've gone clubbing a lot. But the scene doesn't attract me like it used to; it's old news for me. Just going again and again is feeling repetitive.

About 4 or 5 years ago, Mike started getting the midweek blues from Ecstasy. It started with just being grumpy on Mondays. Then it stretched to Tuesdays as well. Then Wednesdays... until he was getting it for the whole week after a Friday night session. And it got more intense, too. He wouldn't touch the stuff now because of the intense depression it puts him into.

But he loved the positive effects of the drug as much as I did. To counter the problem, he researched supplements and tried a few before settling on St. John's Wort, which seemed to help a little. When the E's after-effects became intolerable even with supplements, he tried a few legal alternatives, and we eventually discovered BZP.

We had a conversation once about this, that if he got bored of clubbing, would I go off him? I said absolutely not - and I was being honest. We've got far more going for us than just recreational drugtaking and music!

BZP is okay to me, and to date I don't get the midweek blues. But it doesn't feel the same as E, and I'm now thoroughly bored of the clubbing game. There's hardly anything left in it for me. I miss E and have fond memories of it, but if he can't take it, I won't either. Integral to the drug was the opportunity to bond deeply with him. So I leave it in the past.

Now, for the current argument.

Mike booked a night out to see Orbital (for those of you who don't know, they're massive in the dance music genre. Old veterans. It's the equivalent of going to see The Stone Roses, but for techno) on Wednesday just gone. We'd just come back from a walking holiday that had left me pretty knackered, and I came back to a heavy workload at work, all the heavier because I work for a small family business and my mum, who runs the office, doesn't know many of the basics of running an office, such as moving old emails into a different folder so that her manager doesn't have to go through 150 of the things to work out what's been dealt with and what hasn't.

Anyway, the point is, I felt tired after a heavy couple of days back at work. The whole of Wednesday I thought about this, trying to work out how I could say, 'I don't really want to go out' without upsetting him. I tried to get in the mindframe to go anyway, but the idea alone was enough to make me angry.

Anyway, it turned out that I got home and he was really looking forward to it. I'd eventually worked out that, even if I said I didn't want to go, if it mattered that much to him then he could go, so it wasn't that big a deal, was it?

But when I said I didn't have the energy, he got annoyed, said nothing else while we ate dinner, and then asked me whether I wanted to go again at the end of dinner. I still didn't feel up for it, so he cold-shouldered me for the next couple of hours.

Eventually he decided to go anyway. When he came back home a few hours later, he cold-shouldered me again.

The next day - Thursday, yesterday - he carried on his sulk. When I came home from work, I hoped we'd be able to talk about it, that maybe he'd realise that I'd felt worn out and that I hadn't refused to go to annoy him, and that all would be well. Nope. He only really has eyes for the fact that I almost stopped him from going to see his favourite band. To be honest, I didn't know Orbital were his favourite. I might have thought his favourite performers were any number of techno acts. He's not identified a firm favourite before now. So maybe they are his favourite, or maybe he's exaggerating for effect, I'm not sure.

So we argued over it yesterday evening, and at one point he made a cheap jab at me by accusing me of needing drugs to have fun. As I explained above in the backstory, that's true to an extent, but he's made far more effort to keep taking drugs than I've needed to.

So now we have a situation where, this morning, he's sulking at me again. I'm not sure how to move forward from this. I feel like bringing the needing drugs jab up with him, but suspect that would just detract from the real issue, which I think is me not wanting to do the same thing as him. There is more information about all of this, but I think this is already a bit tl;dr, so if anyone has questions, please ask!

Thank you for those of you who've taken the time to read all of this. I really appreciate it.

I used to because I was depressed in my late teenage years. Say what you like about drugs, but they did lift me out of a depression and give me a reason to live. I've since stopped taking them as I don't need them any more. My relationship, my life experience now, sustains me well.

No worries. I am not judging you. I was merely trying to gauge your situation. I am sure most of his aggrevation was that he wanted to share something he loved with someone he loves.

I have no doubt that you were tired and he should have kept this in mind but the jab was not necessary. Drugs or no drugs,...he was lashing out because he was hurt.

As far as the sulking, you need to explain to him (if he will listen) that you were ONLY tired and it was not personal. Tell him that you will make it up to him somehow. Everyone get disappointed every now and then yet holding grudges solves nothing.

After the dust has settled, I would try and discuss why he used the jab he did. Obviously this is something that has been on his mind or new it would hurt you.

He needs to realize that you have feelings, needs and wants just as much as he does and compromises need to be made.

-SuperDave71

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit." -Aristotle

When I got home on Friday, I went to unlock the front door to get in as usual, but he came through to unlock it and greet me with a hug. We had an evening just relaxing together, not mentioning the incident and getting on a keel of, 'we're still eachother's friends'.

The next day, we went for a walk after chores and talked through the whole thing. I let him go first to tell me how it all felt to him and, actually, because the defences were down, it wasn't too bad to listen to. Once I was sure he'd said all he needed to, I brought up my feelings about clubbing. He listened just fine.

We eventually worked out that he doesn't like the idea of clubbing alone partly - but crucially - because it's unwise to walk home alone. I suggested a taxi, and maybe he'll do that on occasion, but we'll see. We agreed also that it's the old formula of clubbing that I'm fed up of, not the DJ acts themselves, so daytime festivals and offbeat concerts are still fine.

I finally brought up the drugs jab and he recognised that wasn't really a well-judged thing to say. He feels that I need drugs to enjoy clubbing, and to an extent that's true, but BZP is subjective stuff and you need to be having fun already before you feel any real effect off it. We have been to club-type things on occasion where I only drank and had no drugs and enjoyed myself there. So we finally came up with the conclusion that my enjoyment of clubs is dependent on the, erm, club. But drugs amplify that. So they're a plus, but not necessary.

I thought that would be the end of the issue and it sounded okay to me, but we later brought it up again and realised something that made us both facepalm. For those of you not living in the UK, I'll explain: over the last couple of years, the government has put new laws in that have affected clubland. One is staggering closing times for pubs. This was intended to make it so that pubs didn't all throw their customers out on the street at the same time (previously 11.30pm), and there'd therefore be less late-night fighting. The plus side of an 11.30 kickout was that the clubs all got a huge influx of clubbers at around midnight. So a good, busy atmosphere was pretty much guaranteed. Not anymore.

The other thing is the smoking ban. Before, people were allowed to smoke in public places, including clubs. So the club would almost always be full. Now, smokers have to go outside to do their thing. The result is that the outside smoking area is normally packed, while the crowd inside tends to be very thin, except if there's somebody really exceptionally good behind the turntables.

All of this means that, rather than seeing a club in terms of '5 hours of clubbing', it's actually more like, '3 hours of waiting for the dancefloor to fill up, one hour of [insert guest DJ here], and 1 hour of people leaving and the crowd getting thinner... and thinner... and thinner.

Before the smoking ban, most clubs wouldn't let you back in if you bought a ticket and then went out. That doesn't happen anymore now that people want to go outside to smoke. This means that, to prove you've paid for entry, you get an ink stamp on the back of your hand in most clubs now. This means that we'll be able to build a night differently: go and do something fun for several hours before the club opens, go and pay entry and get our hand stamps when it opens, bugger off and get a few drinks while it fills up, and then come in for the busy part of the night!

Problem sorted! I have to say, I'm genuinely happy about the above, so that's what we're going to do! Why didn't we think of it this way before? But first, we're going to have a bit of an amnesty - 3 months with no night-time clubbing. That was his suggestion.

Oh, and I asked him if there was anything I could do to make up for missing Orbital with him and at first he said there was nothing. But there's a daytime festival in London in a few weeks and guess who's headlining? Yep!

I'm glad you guys could get things resolved, and I'm glad you both waited until your defenses were down to talk about it - that's usually the best way to do it.

It sounds like the two of you have made a pretty fair compromise that suits the both of you, and while the drug jab was hurtful and unnecessary, it really sounds like it was something said in the heat of the moment.

Always glad to hear when a conflict is peacefully resolved on this board! Good luck to you!